VIRTUAL/ONLINE COVID-19: PRESENTATION OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC, IN HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS’ INSTAGRAM POSTS

Abstract

In the Covid-19 pandemic process that broke out in Wuhan city, China and affected the whole world, the active use of social media by healthcare professionals is considered as significantly important in preventing information pollution and transferring scientific knowledge to the society. In this context, this study, which examined the 10 instagram account of health scientists in Turkey, aims to reveal the message format usage preferences of healthcare professional opinion leaders, distribution of themed message using rates and preferences based on the type of sharing. Moreover, in scope of this study which is based on user content collected using the Instagram application (API) between March 11, 2020 and May 1, 2020, the structure of the visual used concerning the visual content (inactive-animated), the distribution of the animated content based on the structure of the visual and the time distributions were examined. In the verbal qualities related to sharing, the theme of the messages in terms of sharing content, the message format (rational-emotional orientation) coding units were formed at a nominal scale. According to the findings of the research, it is seen that healthcare professional opinion leaders prefer to use the rationally oriented message format more. In the posts shared by the " kayihanpala" and "akinkaya4677" named Instagram accounts, chosen among the healthcare professionals examined within the framework of the research unit, the rates of 70% and 66.7%, respectively, stand out in the use of emotionally oriented messages. In the Instagram account named “dr.fahrettinkoca”, which defines the institutional representation of the Minister of Health, the usage rate of rationally oriented messages and emotionally oriented messages can be considered equal to each other. When the data obtained regarding the use of themed messages and the data on message formats are evaluated, it is seen that the "dr.fahrettinkoca", "kayihanpala", and "akinkaya4677", named accounts, where emotionally oriented message sharing occurs at high rates, also focus on themed messages for the measures to be taken in the process. When the posts shared by the healthcare professional opinion leaders are evaluated regarding format, it is seen that the inactive sharing type is preferred. In the presentation of animated visuals, based on real life animated image sharing patterns is preferred. It is one of the findings that IGTV posts longer than 1 minute come to the fore in posts where animation, videography and photo clip use are not preferred in content design.